


Devastated

by no_kitty_thats_my_pot_pie



Category: Malcolm in the Middle
Genre: Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 19:32:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5882800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/no_kitty_thats_my_pot_pie/pseuds/no_kitty_thats_my_pot_pie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reese has been devastated at least five times. His family deals with his clinical depression the best they can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devastated

The first time Reese’s depression becomes apparent to his family is the summer before he enters high school. That summer had been weird for him, but it was to be expected. All Wilkerson men are hit hard by puberty.

Reese wakes up that morning unable to cope. He is too tired to do anything he enjoys – he can’t even work himself up to tormenting Dewey. The voices in his head are too loud today and he cannot deal with anyone else’s voice in the mix.

He decides to go somewhere no one will bother him. As much as he loves the idea of staying in bed all day, he knows he will find no peace in a room he shares with two of his brothers. Reese dedicates several minutes to convincing himself to get up and when he finally propels himself out of bed, he shuffles out of his room and down the hall.

Reese ignores his mother when she snaps at him and ducks headfirst into the drying machine.

There is a momentary silence and then Lois’s face appears in the opening.

“ _Reese!_ What the hell are you doing? Get out of there!”

He ignores her. Instead he focuses on finding a comfortable position inside the dryer. It is already almost too small for him to fit and, due to his being in the middle of a growth spurt, won’t be a safe haven for much longer.

But for now, it is, and that’s all that matters. When he got out of bed moments ago his brain didn’t know where to go, but his legs did. They knew somehow that the drying machine would be warm and quiet and away. His body often has to make decisions for his brain.

Lois is startled by the lack of response. Her second son isn’t as spiteful as Francis or as loudmouthed as Malcolm, but even so he usually has _something_ to say when she yells at him.

“Reese?” She tries again, softer this time. “What’s the matter?”

Reese ignores her again, but it doesn’t work out so well this time. At first this new tactic was a surprise to Lois, but now it is an annoyance and a challenge. She threatens him with grounding and grunt work and all kinds of punishments, but it doesn’t faze him. She tries to drag him out by his feet, but for once his will is stronger than hers.

Lois is steamed now and about to declare war, but Hal intervenes on his behalf.

“Leave the boy alone, Lois. He’s going through a hard time right now. All the men in my family get hit hard with puberty. Remember what a mess Francis was?” Hal slapped the top of the drying machine and continued, “Reese just needs some understanding. His body is changing and he has all these feelings he doesn’t u–”

“Okay, Hal, I get it.” Lois cuts him short and ducks down to stare in at Reese one more time. “Fine, mister, you can stay for a while. But I’m doing laundry tonight and this dryer had better be _vacant_ by then. Got it?”

Reese lets out a grunt that his mother must have interpreted as ‘yes’ because soon both his parents disappear and he is finally left alone…for seventeen minutes until Dewey notices his absence and begins investigating.

It doesn’t take long. He asks, “Where’s Reese?” after he finishes breakfast and Hal points to the dryer without looking up from his newspaper.

Dewey pokes his head in the dryer and finds his older brother squashed inside. He pokes Reese and then jumps out of the way to avoid the blow that he assumes is coming – only it doesn’t. He pokes Reese again, harder, and jumps out of the way again. Still nothing.

“Is Reese sick?” Dewey asks.

“No, honey, he’s just stubborn and dramatic,” Lois responds from the kitchen.

“Now, Lois, I think you’re being a bit unfair,” Hal starts and then stops when he receives a glare from his wife. Even so, Reese appreciates the effort.

Dewey keeps poking Reese. Cartoons are on TV, but he watches those every day. Being able to antagonize Reese with no response is entirely new and fascinating. He searches the yard for particularly rough and pointy sticks and begins poking his brother with those. In his head, Reese is reminding himself to kill Dewey when he feels better, but for now all he manages is a lazy swat of his hand whenever a new stick enters the dryer opening.

When exactly will he feel better, though? Reese is beginning to worry. This is the first time it’s gotten extreme, but he’s felt funky and sad for a few months now. This puberty thing is really starting to become a pain. In fact, he’s so upset over it that he can’t muster up any excitement over finally growing armpit hair.

Dewey starts throwing things at him. First they’re small things he likely found in between the couch cushions, like buttons and M&Ms. Then, he upgrades. Lois catches him attempting to chuck a baseball into the dryer and orders him to play outside.

Reese is alone now, and uses this opportunity to go away in his mind. This is similar to turning off his brain, a trick he discovered last year in math, except he is still able to see and hear things happening around him. He just isn’t able to respond until he comes back. Going away does a good job of keeping shitty, horrible feelings at bay for a while. If Reese could stay like that all the time, he would.

Unfortunately, going away kept his body stuck in one place. He had to be able to walk and talk in everyday life – the Krelboynes aren’t going to bully themselves, and kicking nerdy ass is his main source of joy.

For a while Reese stays holed up in the dryer, keeping the bad thoughts and feelings away using his clever trick. He’s at peace until Lois bangs on the side and shouts, “Reese, get out here! I have laundry to do!”

Begrudgingly, he comes back to reality. If he ignores his mother, he won’t have a body left for his mind to come back to.

“I’m not ready yet,” he says.

“I don’t give a damn. Get out now!” Lois orders.

They go back and forth like this for a few minutes until Lois gets so frustrated that she tries to drag him out again. She grabs hold of his foot and yanks, but Reese holds his ground. This tug-of-war continues for another few minutes. Finally, Lois gives up and lets go of his foot with a huff. It quickly disappears into the dryer.

“Damn it, Reese! What’s the matter with you?” she cries, angry and exasperated. Suddenly, she grabs hold of an idea. “Oh, my God. What have you done? Are you hiding from me because you’ve done something horrible? Oh, God, what is it this time?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” he replies, and resists the urge to add, “you crazy old bat.”

“Get out of there this minute or I’m going to use this dryer with you still in it,” she threatens.

“Fine,” he says, believing her and not caring.

Lois remembers what her husband said earlier about Reese’s behavior likely being a result of a rough puberty and seeks advice from the only person she knows with the same problem.

“I cried in the shower every day for six months and you never asked me once what was wrong!” Francis berates her over the phone. “Some mother you are.”

“Francis, if I asked for a play-by-play every time you were upset about something, I’d spend my whole life talking to you. I swear, you’re the most dramatic person I know,” Lois says.

Francis then goes on a five-minute rant about her horrible parenting and his damaging childhood and proves her point exactly without realizing it. Lois cuts him off at the five-minute mark because he hasn’t given her advice yet and she really needs to do laundry.

“Just leave him alone, Mom. If I was him and I was hiding in the dryer – well, I would never hide in the dryer, but Reese is weird that way. The last thing he wants is to talk to anybody right now.”

Reese can’t hear this conversation, but he wouldn’t be surprised to learn Francis is exactly right. Francis usually is. Francis is the coolest.

Lois begrudgingly puts her laundry off until tomorrow. The next morning she is prepared to come up with a fake story about her idiot son getting stuck in the dryer and call the fire department, but finds she doesn’t have to. Around midnight last night Reese realizes his bed sounds pretty alluring and sneaks back to his room to sleep.

Lois assumes this is a strange, one-time deal. She is wrong. Dewey is still convinced his brother was sick yesterday. He is right.

* * *

Reese dates Allison for seven months and thirteen days in his sophomore year of high school. He isn’t the perfect boyfriend, or even a particularly good one, but it is his first try (Wendy doesn’t count) so he thinks he deserves some slack.

She breaks up with him, much to his dismay, before he takes her to the spring formal. Well, technically, she breaks up with him afterward but she gives him notice beforehand.

“It’ll be fun. We’ll dance to Spotlight Dance and we’ll make sure we get our picture taken together so we’ll always remember this night,” he remembers her saying, “and _then_ I’ll break up with you forever.”

Brutal.

Reese takes her to the dance, anyway, because he _did_ promise (he hates when his mother is right) and it is fun – for her. Allison giggles and dances her way through the night while her date spends the whole time weeping. He knows he looks like a wuss, and he can see kids he beats up start to fear him less, but there seems to be no stopping the waterworks.

He feels rotten on the inside and wants more than anything to go away in his mind, but unfortunately that leaves his head more vacant than usual. He isn’t participating much in Allison’s good time (she seems determined to have fun whether he cooperates or not), but even his low maintenance soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend will get angry if he completely checks out mentally.

He supposes crying will have to do for now. He doesn’t even care that he’s crying in their picture and that it could somehow be used to blackmail him in the future. Sneaking into Allison’s house and burning the picture will have to wait until he is in a more stable state of mind.

Allison is still in a good mood when he drops her off at her house after the dance. She leans over to kiss his cheek and says, “I had a really great time tonight, Reese.” For a moment he hopes she’ll change her mind, but then she deals the final blow in a chipper voice: “Goodbye forever!”

When he arrives home, he’s still weepy and Lois groans at the sight of him.

“For God’s sake, Reese, were you like that all _night_? You put that girl through hell and you still didn’t let her have a good time?”

“She had fun,” he argues and shuffles to his room before she can start the same rant he’s been hearing for days: _…you made a promise to Allison and you have to be true to your word, my God, haven’t I taught you_ anything _? Oh, don’t you try to make me feel sorry for you, you deserve this after what you tried to do to that girl – oh God, Reese, stop crying, you’re being so dramatic…_

Reese doesn’t even bother taking off his shoes or uncomfortable tux before falling face first onto his bed. He goes away in his head for a while, but is forced to come back when Dewey tries to draw a penis on his forehead with permanent marker.

“Get out of here, twerp!” he snaps and swats Dewey’s hand away, but then groans and crumples into a heap on the bed. “Oh, what does it matter? It’s not like Allison cares what I look like any more!”

Malcolm, who is sitting at his desk doing homework, rolls his eyes. “Oh, God, are you still moping about that? It’s been _days_! You were going to screw up with Allison eventually. I’m actually surprised you lasted this long.”

Seconds ago, Reese was prepared to curl in a ball and continue moping, but Malcolm’s comment sparks a fire in him. Hurting others always manages to make him feel at least a _little_ better.

Reese holds Malcolm down while Dewey marks up _his_ face with the marker instead.

“This was nice,” he tells his younger brother afterward when they’re both grounded. “We finally found something to do together.”

“What’s the matter with you?” Dewey asks. “You haven’t acted this weird since that girl beat you up in wrestling.”

“A girl beat me up this time, too. In my heart.”

“Oh, God,” says Dewey.

* * *

It would be a lie to claim that the depressive episode Reese has in his first senior year of high school is the first one that has happened since his horrible night with Allison two years ago. There have been many in between, but Reese has been trying desperately to hide them in order to maintain his tough guy persona.

This is the first time that plan doesn’t work. Unfortunately, depression doesn’t care about Reese’s reputation as a bad-ass or if he has plans or how his family feels about him ‘moping in bed all day.’ No, depression doesn’t care about any of this at all.

Reese lays in bed all afternoon, wishing he hadn’t grown to be so tall and muscular because now he can’t fit in the dryer any more. Malcolm is out somewhere with Stevie and Dewey, like usual, has way too much time on his hands so he immediately notices his brother’s strange behavior.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks, but Reese doesn’t respond.

Dewey is merely curious and quickly becomes concerned when he accidentally steps on a pushpin on the floor of their room (damn it, Jaime) and his scream of pain doesn’t get even the slightest reaction from Reese. Where is the gleeful laughing? Why isn’t his brother chasing him around the house with said pushpin at this very moment?

“Reese? You okay?” Dewey asks softly.

Once again, he gets no reaction from his brother. Reese doesn’t even attempt to kick his ass for the obvious tenderness in his voice just now.

“Are you sick again?”

Reese isn’t puking or moaning or showing physical ailments of any kind, but Dewey can’t think of any other way to categorize his behavior than the conclusion he came up with years ago during the dryer incident. In fact, sick seems like the exact right word.

He’s unsure of what to do, and Malcolm and Francis are both temporarily unavailable, so Dewey abandons all his principles and goes to his mother for help.

“Mom, I think there’s something wrong with Reese. He seems sick or something,” he tells Lois as she folds laundry in the living room.

“Is he throwing up?”

“No.”

“Bleeding all over my carpet?”

“No.”

“Moaning in pain?”

“No.”

“Then he’s fine,” Lois responds and shoos him from her presence because her soap opera has just come on.

Dewey decides to coerce Reese from his creepy, trance-like state himself, but is unsure how. He attempts to think in their room, but Reese is currently staring blankly at the ceiling and it’s freaking Dewey out. He wanders in to the bathroom, where he discovers something glorious: a towel twisted to make a good weapon. Dewey suddenly remembers all the fun Reese has been having all week whipping him with this very towel.

Dewey retrieves the towel and practices snapping it a few times before he saunters into the bedroom to demonstrate for his downtrodden older brother. Reese is forced to come back from hiding inside himself when Dewey walks in and whips the towel several times right really loudly.

“Boy, when you whip the tip, this thing really cracks!” Dewey cries, impressed, and demonstrates a few more times for good measure. “Hey, would you hold this for me?”

He passes the towel off to Reese, who lazily holds onto the end of it. This is unfortunate for Reese, who was already starting to zone out again, but is now forced to hold onto a towel for his annoying younger brother. If he was using his brain, he might have been able to work out what Dewey is doing, but all he can muster at the moment is watching the events unfold in front of him without really caring about the outcome.

“What’s that on the floor? The poem I wrote about kittens!” Dewey cries. There is no poem, but Reese doesn’t check the floor for proof. Phew. “That’s so weird! I guess I have no choice but to bend over wearing last year’s shorts and pick it up!”

Dewey bends over and shoves his butt in Reese’s face, who is holding a harmless object-turned weapon, and braces himself for the hurt he has coming. Except it doesn’t come. Reese still looks disinterested, even when Dewey shakes his butt around. _Nothing._

This prompts Dewey to ask his mother for help once again because she’s his last resort and he calls her into the kitchen. Her soap opera is on a commercial so she agrees. Dewey pulls out a chair for his mother and kindly says, “Sit” so Lois is understandably nervous about this talk. Whenever her children act decent for a few minutes, it means something has gone terribly wrong.

“He’s really sick, Mom,” Dewey finally tells her.

“All right, fine,” Lois gives up with a sigh. “Bring him out here so I can have a look at him.”

“I don’t think he’ll get out of bed, Mom. Remember that time he wouldn’t get out of the dryer?”

Lois heads into the boys’ bedroom to confront Reese, but not before forcing Dewey to finish folding all the laundry because that’s what he gets for doing something nice.

Reese has gone away in his head again, and the towel has long since slipped from his fingers onto the floor. Lois sits down opposite him on Malcolm and Dewey’s bed, but Reese doesn’t acknowledge her presence or even seem to know she’s there. He continues to stare blankly at the ceiling, which unnerves Lois as much as it did Dewey minutes earlier.

“Reese,” she says, and he shakes out of his strange state immediately. Lois has that effect on her sons. “Reese, tell me what’s going on with you.”

Reese just shrugs, unwilling to answer her. The truth is, he often feels terrible like this for no reason, but this time he _has_ a reason – he’s just too embarrassed to admit what it is, especially to his mother. Reese has never been intelligent. He knows this and so does everyone else, but there’s something about math that makes his stupidity even more apparent than usual. Every math problem he failed to solve on the test he took today only made him feel worse and worse, and now he feels pathetic for reacting so severely to something so small because, ultimately, who cares? _He_ does, and isn’t sure why.

“I want you to tell me this minute what’s the matter with you. Is this a scheme to make me more sympathetic when I discover the horrible thing you’ve done? Did you do something stupid and accidentally give yourself brain damage? What is it?” Lois attempts to pry some information out of Reese.

Again, he shrugs.

“I…don’t feel good.” She stills seems unimpressed, so he elaborates: “I’m sad.”

“We all get upset sometimes, Reese. You don’t think I wish I could curl up in bed and cry for the rest of the afternoon sometimes? Hell, I wish I could do that right now, but that’s not how things works. The world doesn’t stop just because you’re feeling bad,” Lois says.

This piece of advice doesn’t sit well with Reese, who just wants to be sad about thinking he failed his math test for a day before he has to go to school and have his failed grade confirmed, and he repositions himself in bed, turning his back to her. Lois lets out a sound that is something between a scoff and a sigh.

“For God’s _sake_ , Reese–” She stops when she suddenly remembers instances from her own childhood when she was weeping into her pillow over something trivial, but life-changing at the time, and Ida only made it worse by shouting insults at her in between drags on her cigarette. “All right, this is what’s going to happen. You can take the rest of the day to mope or cry or do whatever you think will make you feel better. _But_ I want you back to normal by tomorrow.”

After laying down these rules, Lois retreats from the room and Reese takes her words as gospel. He’ll be sad today, and then feel completely fine tomorrow. After all, if anyone can fight off depression through sheer will, it’s his mother.

Unfortunately, this does not happen and it’s the first sign to Lois that there may be a deeper problem hidden inside Reese. Dewey picked up on this years ago, but it isn’t until now that he can identify what’s going on that he begins to get worried.

* * *

During his second year being a senior at high school, Reese is placed in the same history class as Malcolm. He’s not sure how or why this happens because it was established very early on that Malcolm is smarter than everyone else, especially Reese. Reese’s best guess is that maybe Malcolm wanted an easy class to take his senior year. He would know what that was like if even the simplest classes weren’t too difficult for him.

On the first day of the semester, Mr. Herkabe calls Reese up to the front of the class. Both brothers recognize him instantly and both are surprised when he chooses to single out Reese instead of Malcolm, who has been the recipient of his rage since the seventh grade.

“Welcome to U.S. History, class,” Mr. Herkabe announces as Reese stands uncomfortably at the front of the room. “Does everyone know Reese?”

Most people nod, but evidently not everyone in the room is familiar with who Reese is. Mr. Herkabe saunters from his desk to the front of the room smugly so he is standing directly next to Reese.

“Allow me to fill you in, then. Reese is Malcolm’s” – he made an exaggerated gesture in his direction – “older brother. That’s right, _older._ Tell me, Reese, why are you in this class?”

“Um…’cause I have to be?” Reese doesn’t know why his answer came out as a question. He knows this is right, but something about the way Mr. Herkabe is looking at him is making him doubt himself.

Mr. Herkabe lets out a satisfied snicker. “‘’ _Cause I have to be._ ’ Okay. Let’s try a simpler question. Did you take this course last year?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You _did_ take this course last year, as a senior. You flunked out of it, just like you did with all of your other classes, which would make you a senior again this year. Isn’t that right?” Mr. Herkabe asks, clearly delighting in Reese’s humiliation.

This time Reese doesn’t answer. He may not know much, but he knows when he’s being made fun of and ignores his teacher’s question in defiance. This only makes Mr. Herkabe more determined.

“Now, now, Reese, don’t look at me like that. I want to help you pass this time. Really, I do. Let’s start by assessing what you know, which, I assume, isn’t much. What year did Alexander Hamilton die, and by whose hand?” Mr. Herkabe asks.

Reese flounders for a few seconds before admitting defeat by asking, “Who’s Alexander Hamilton?”

The class erupts in laughter, led by Mr. Herkabe, whose obnoxious snicker is the loudest of them all. Malcolm is the only one who doesn’t laugh, although he doesn’t stick up for his brother, either. In fact, he feels embarrassed to know Reese rather than embarrassed _for_ Reese.

Reese is berated like this for the rest of class and makes sure to skip that period the next day. The second he walks through the door of his house after school, he is confronted by a furious Lois who has received a phone call from Mr. Herkabe about her son ditching his class. Reese is pretty stunned to hear this. By now, most of his teachers are either too consumed with hatred, fear, or indifference towards him to ever call home when he skips. They’re usually glad.

“This is unacceptable, Reese! Do you really want to spend the rest of your life living at home like some pathetic hobo? Well, that’s not going to happen, not if I have anything to say about it! You are graduating this year, and I don’t want to hear another word about it! Mr. Herkabe is trying his damnedest to get you to pass his class and you are going to accept his help! I mean it, if you skip again, I will her about it and I will punish you! Got it?”

Lois rants and raves like this for a full hour. By the time she is done, Reese feels worse than he did yesterday in Mr. Herkabe’s class. He is forced to choose between the lesser of two evils and, as always, his mother is the greater threat.

Reese shows up to U.S. History the next day like a dog with its tail between its legs. Mr. Herkabe begins gloating the moment he sees Reese and pounces on him as soon as the bell rings.

“Well, well, well. Look who came back. I hope you spent the time you missed yesterday studying, Reese. I have a lot of questions prepared for you.”

As it turns out, Mr. Herkabe also has weeks of torture prepared for Reese. Neither of the Wilkerson brothers know much about him, but they soon learn how creative and sadistic their teacher is.

Reese has always considered flunking his previous senior year so completely that he couldn’t possibly make up for it one of his greatest accomplishments. He bought himself another whole year at home with his family, whom he will never admit he isn’t ready to be apart from. For the first time he is beginning to regret that decision. If he had graduated last year, he wouldn’t have to endure the daily punishments Mr. Herkabe forced upon him for not being smart enough – or rather, not smart at all.

What baffles him the most is Malcolm’s lack of action during this whole thing. At first Reese thought his brother needed time to plan an elaborate scheme to make Mr. Herkabe suffer, but more weeks passed and it quickly became apparent that Malcolm wasn’t going to do anything at _all_.

Reese will never confront Malcolm over it because having hurt feelings is unmanly, but he _does_ feel a bit betrayed. Their family could be brutal towards one another, and he and Malcolm in particular butt heads the most, but he always thought that the brothers were the only ones who could pick on each other.

Has Malcolm forgotten about the countless times Reese has beaten on kids for making fun of him? Was this the beginning of Malcolm cutting ties with his family before he heads off to college and leaves them forever? Does Malcolm really care so little for him?

These kinds of thoughts have been stewing inside Reese for nearly two months, along with overwhelming feelings of sadness and self-hatred, and he has taken to going away in his mind as soon as he gets home from school every day. Malcolm never says a word about this, until one day he does.

Reese is sitting at his desk with his head on top of his schoolbooks, staring blankly while his mind is somewhere else. He had attempted to study to try to get the upper hand on Herkabe tomorrow, but it only took about two minutes for him to realize it was hopeless. Malcolm sits on the bed reading a comic book, but more importantly ignoring him like usual, until he gets up and begins to speak:

“Reese…I think it’s terrible what Herkabe has been putting you through in class. I really feel bad about the way he’s treating you.”

Why hadn’t Malcolm said this weeks ago? More importantly, why is Malcolm forcing him to face his feelings, something Reese has been dead-set against since birth? Suddenly anger accompanies the rotten numbness and worthlessness in his gut and he lashes out at his brother.

“I’ll bet I can make you feel worse!” Reese snaps, bounding from the chair to Malcolm and knocking him out with one swing of his fist. After his short bust of violence, Reese is the happiest he’s been in weeks.

The very next day, Reese is in Mr. Herkabe’s class, sitting at his desk with his head down. He’s actually surprised Mr. Herkabe let him sit down – usually he stops Reese at the front of the room and he never even makes it to his desk. Then something strange happens – for the first time since the semester began, Mr. Herkabe teaches the class something. He doesn’t humiliate Reese or use animals to compare his intelligence with. Mr. Herkabe doesn’t even _look_ at him all period.

A few days later Mr. Herkabe shows up in Reese and Malcolm’s gym period. Reese is sure there is an explanation for this, but he doesn’t care what it is. All he knows is the tables have turned. After he nails Herkabe in the head for the first time with a dodgeball, he nods gratefully at Malcolm. He doesn’t know for sure, but he likes to think his brother had something to do with his sudden change of luck.

* * *

The most recent case of Reese’s depression catches everyone’s attention this time, likely because they all know the cause of it.

A week prior, Reese is contacted by a girl at school who claims her cousin spotted him at the dance and liked what she saw. He is distrustful of this at first, sure she is an uggo, but is proved wrong when the girl gives him a picture. He is so impressed that he frenches the picture every night that week after talking to the cousin, Cindy, on the phone and isn’t embarrassed who knows about it.

He and Cindy set up a date to go out, and Reese is beyond excited. He is sure this is his chance to start feeling better after his divorce. From his nightly phone conversations with Cindy, she seems so alike him and he can’t imagine she would hurt him like Raduca did, or Beth before her.

The day comes and he preps everything for her – his house, his family, and especially himself. He even buys flowers to give to her (a special touch) and when he is freaking and about to open the front door to greet Cindy, his mother calms his nerves by saying, “Reese, relax! All you have to do is just be yourself.”

Before he can work out in his head how he can do that _and_ manage not to drive this girl away, he opens the door to a pig wearing lipstick and four giggling girls with camera phones. He doesn’t remember anything after that. The next thing he knows he is in his bed and it seems as if a lot of time has passed, at the very least half a day.

Sometime later, Lois plops down on the edge of his bed and presents his high school yearbook.

“I want names,” she demands. “How many were there?”

He is still frazzled from the whole ordeal so the most he can manage is holding up four fingers. He’s actually impressed with himself for remembering even that much about what happened. He has been trying to block the whole thing out.

“Good. At least you can hear me now,” his mother says.

Had she spoken to him during the period where he couldn’t remember anything? He was conscious during that time? He’d assumed he had fainted or something, but this implied a much more serious problem.

 _Oh well,_ he thought, shrugging it away. This problem was nothing he couldn’t solve by ignoring it until it got worse.

“Just nod when you see one,” Lois continues and begins running her finger along the rows of pictures of Reese’s classmates.

He nods when her finger lands on Kristin Peterson’s picture. Her snickering, gleeful face is plastered into his brain.

“Kristin?” He whimpers at the sound of her name, but Lois clutches him and says, “It’s okay. She can’t hurt you now.”

He supposes this is true and calms down. He is more helpful afterwards and manages to give his mother the names of the other three girls without incident. She leaves and, rather than try to figure out why she needs the information, he tries to block the girls from his memory completely. He is unsuccessful.

Lois disappears, but the rest of the family tries to help the best they can. Malcolm mostly ignores his brother, but occasionally throws Reese awkward, half-assed smiles that neither of them is sure how they’re supposed to help. Francis, hearing about what happened from someone in the family, consoles Reese on the phone for a while, who just nods and stares at the ceiling while Dewey whispers, “Reese, Francis can’t _hear a nod_.” Hal brings his son soup and often attempts conversation, awkwardly sitting on the edge of the bed and saying, “So, sport, do you feel like getting out of bed today?” before wandering out of the room after no response.

Rather than fumble around Reese like most of the rest of his family were, Dewey googles _clinical depression_ at the library (to do so on the computer at home felt wrong somehow) and scans the list of symptoms. _Check, check, check,_ he thinks, matching Reese’s behavior to a large chunk of the list.

Dewey prints out the list and puts checkmarks next to the symptoms he believes his brother possesses. He writes _Reese?_ at the bottom of the page. He plans to give it to Lois or Malcolm – maybe both. He looks at the paper and expects to feel the satisfaction that comes with an _I told you so_ attitude, but instead he feels rotten and thinks, _Oh, crap…I’m right._

He throws the paper in the garbage.

Dewey is the only one who has any idea how to handle this situation because he has seen this happen to his brother before and didn’t chalk it up to Reese being dramatic. He suspected then and he knows for sure now that something more serious is happening.

He goes home and immediately drags a weepy Reese out of bed and onto the couch. TV _always_ makes Reese feel better…only this time it doesn’t. Dewey isn’t surprised by this. He then offers to let Reese smash the ant farm he had been growing for weeks, but his brother isn’t interested. Dewey sighs in defeat and leads his brother by the hand back into bed.

He does for Reese what Lois doesn’t – he is there. The next day Reese stinks so bad that neither Malcolm nor Dewey can stand to be in their bedroom anymore, so Dewey jostles Reese into the bathtub and scrubs his brother clean himself.

Before he begins, Dewey says, “I’m gonna tell you about what happened at school today. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I just thought you might be interested.” He then proceeds to tell Reese about his crabby teacher while giving him a sponge bath.

He is aware how strange this situation is, but no one else is willing to do it.

Meanwhile, Reese is thinking that maybe he should start being a little nicer to Dewey. His younger brother isn’t so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on events seen or mentioned in "Zoo" (4.01), "Academic Octathlon" (4.16), "No Motorcycles" (6.16), "Malcolm Defends Reese" (7.10), and "Lois Strikes Back" (7.16).


End file.
